Heaven's Not Enough
by Wired Witch
Summary: Response to challenge. One week since Beka’s death, the crew deal.


TITLE: Heaven's Not Enough AUTHOR: Erin Chase aka Wired Witch  
SUMMARY: One week since Beka's death, the crew deal. Response to challenge...  
DISCLAIMER: I own nothing from the Andromeda series, I'm just borrowing.  
NOTES: This is a one-off written in response to the Cassie K's secret santa challenge on EI. The challenge was to write a fic with the lyrics "'Cause I couldn't cry 'Cause I turned away, Couldn't See the score" in mind. Check out my user info for more Drom fics coming up :D

**Heaven's Not Enough**  
"'Cause I couldn't cry  
'Cause I turned away  
Couldn't see the score"

It was over and it hadn't even begun. Trance sat in the dark in hydroponics. She had cried so much her soul was fading with every tear. Beka was gone. Dead, for one week now. Everything had stopped since that day. Time had frozen the moment her fragile body hit the ground. When Harper had returned from his and Beka's mission alone, Trance had fallen to her knees, a statue of mourning and self-loathing. How could she have been so blind? Why hadn't she seen this possibility?

In her heart she knew why. They were so close to the perfect future she could taste it. That's why her vision was clouded. She wanted to feel that perfect future, to finally achieve her life's purpose, and for everything to be right. She wanted it so badly that her mind had blocked out all else. The sacrifices.

One week since that day there was no perfect future. Her life's purpose had not been fulfilled, and nothing was right. In fact, it was all horribly wrong. Rommie wasn't the same. Dylan would never forgive himself. Tyr was staying strong but Trance knew he had died a little bit inside. As for Harper...it hit him the hardest. He was there when it happened and that would never leave him. Harper had taken off today. Trance knew he couldn't stand it. Maybe on some levels, he couldn't stand her - for not seeing. Whatever the reason, now the crew of the Andromeda and the cornerstones of her perfect world were no longer there. And Trance couldn't see anything at all.

'_Cause I couldn't cry_

Since learning of Beka's death, she had changed. She was depressed. Rommie hadn't thought it possible for an android to become depressed, but she had outdone herself once again. One week ago when Harper returned with Beka's body, she hadn't been prepared for the shock. But even scarier was the pain that followed it. How humans dealt with grief was beyond her.

Rommie hated Harper for giving her the capacity to feel. She had cried before, but not this time. The shock was too much, the pain too great. Emotion overwhelmed her and it stopped her dead in her tracks. After three days Rommie couldn't deal with it anymore. Her systems simply shut down. Harper emerged from his room for the first time since returning to Andromeda to fix her, but it was beyond his capability. He switched her back on but Rommie had already made the decision to purge her emotions. Every last one. She was done with it, done with feeling.

After experiencing betrayal, loss, hatred, grief, anger and that most excruciating of emotions, love, she was finished. Beka was a member of her crew. More than that, her friend and her family. She had been there as Rommie grew and evolved, and now she was gone. Why endure that kind of sadness when there was an option to stop it all?

When Dylan discovered what Rommie had done, he wasn't happy. He considered it another loss. Something more to grieve for, and had she retained her emotions, she would have been sorry for making him feel that way. Maybe she would have been sorry for being one of the reasons that Harper left. Sorry for being a coward and taking the easy way out. But she wasn't sorry for anything anymore. She was free.

'_Cause I turned away_

Harper threw another bottle behind him. He sat in the Maru's cockpit, a shell of his former chirpy, upbeat self. He hoped the alcohol would stop the hurt, or at least drown out the memory. Unfortunately nothing existed that was strong enough.

It had been three hours since he left Andromeda. Three hours and almost two cases of beer. He couldn't stay on that ship and grieve at the same time. So alcohol was his way of dealing, so what? They weren't there. They didn't know what it was like actually watching her, being with her and then...then not. In a way he wished he could simply turn off his emotions like Rommie had done. No, how could he say that? What Rommie did was unforgivable. She killed herself. Killed her soul, the soul that he had given her to nurture and turn into her own.

What was the point in staying on that ship, the ship he loved so much when there was no-one left alive onboard? Trance had never been the same since her change. So obsessed with her perfect future that she failed to even see Beka's death. Dylan was in the state of heartache that Harper was and if that were true, Dylan was dead inside too. As for Tyr...Tyr was anyone's guess. It was obvious that he and Beka had something. What that thing was would probably remain between the two forever, because that was Tyr's way. Maybe Tyr wasn't dead inside but he sure seemed like it on the outside.

Perhaps there was no escaping it. He was, after all, on the Maru. On Beka's ship, sitting in the pilot's chair. Harper finished another beer and smashed the bottle on the wall. He didn't know where he was going. It didn't matter, as long as it wasn't somewhere he had been with her. Harper set a course for some random system, unclipped his seatbelt and went to get another beer. On his way he passed her room. The dried blood still stained the sheets where her body had been lying. She was dead before she hit the ground, but he still picked her up and took her back. He remembered the warmth of her blood as it ran into his shirt, the coldness of her skin, even after only a few minutes. He knew she was dead but he couldn't let her go that easily. One week later and Harper still couldn't let her go. It had been so quick. That was what he couldn't handle. There wasn't any warning, no chance of survival, no hero's death, simply there and gone in a matter of seconds. Killed by a lowlife scumbag who wasn't even worth the dirt on his shoes. Beka deserved so much more.

He hated her. He hated her for leaving him. She was the one thing he could always rely on, his one constant and now she was gone. How could she abandon him like this?

Harper found himself trashing her room. He shouted and screamed and raved into nothing until there was only him and the mess he had created. "God damn you Beka," he whispered, and sat in the centre of the room, sobbing quietly for the woman he loved and hated so much.

'_Cause I couldn't see the score_

Dylan stood on the Command Deck staring into the stars. No matter how many times he found himself doing so, he never tired of it. The stars were the only constant in his life. Friend, family and surroundings all changed over time but the stars were always the same, and they never caused him pain.

The pain he felt since Beka's death was incomprehensible. The moment he had seen her body in the Maru was burned onto his memory. He would never forget. There was so much blood. How could so much blood come from just one person? Dylan shook the memory. He had been doing a lot of that lately.

"Trying to forget me already? It's only been a week," Beka said, standing next to him. Dylan wasn't surprised by her presence. "You Beka, are unforgettable."

Andromeda thought the better of disturbing him. Over the past week he had frequently appeared to talk to himself.

"It wasn't your fault you know," Beka told him. "I was pissed off. How were you supposed to know what was going to happen?"

"I shouldn't have let you go," Dylan argued. "You should have had back-up."

"You're blaming Harper now?"

Dylan was quick to reply. "Of course not!"

"That's because it's ridiculous right? Just like it's ridiculous that you blame yourself. I'm dead, get over it."

"You think you're that easy to get over?" Dylan retorted.

"Now now, flattery will get you nowhere. Especially when you're just talking to a figment of your imagination. People will start to talk."

Dylan laughed slightly. "What people would those be? Harper's gone, Rommie's gone and Tyr is...lifting weights I imagine."

"They're still out there. You can get them back. You're Dylan Hunt!" Beka assured. "There's nothing you can't do! So why don't you get off your proverbial ass and do something about it? Did it ever occur to you that maybe everyone is gone because you left first?"

Dylan looked at her, or whatever this thing was he was having a conversation with.

"You're the glue that hold this place together. It wasn't me, it was you. This crew fell apart because you couldn't see that. But lucky for you Captain Dylan Hunt, it's not too late," Beka told him cheerfully. "You think I want you to be apart like this? Go get Trance, go get Tyr, go get Harper and then bring Rommie back. That's all you have to do," she said simply and, with a shrug, Beka was gone.

"Dylan? I'm sorry if I disturbed you," Trance said, entering.

"No, Trance, it's okay," Dylan assured.

Trance moved over to where Beka had been standing. "She wouldn't want this. She wouldn't want us to be apart."

Dylan smiled briefly. "No. She wouldn't."

"I'm sorry, Dylan."

"What for?"

"For not seeing," Trance admitted. "I...I just wish..."

Dylan interrupted her before she could go down that road. "You're not perfect, Trance. No living thing can be perfect. Mistakes are a part of life. All life."

Trance seemed to accept his words. She looked out to the stars. "Wherever she is...her soul...I know it's full of light. If I could define it? I suppose it would be much like heaven. A place where she is at peace."

Dylan somehow began to feel a little better. "Beka was too good for that," he smirked, and started a search for the Maru. "Heaven's not enough."

END


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